


Shelter from the Storm

by Rizobact



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Also Cold, Blizzards & Snowstorms, Cuddling, Gen, Humor, Jazz Doesn’t Like The Cold, Lots of Cold, Minor Angst, More Wind, More snow, Prowl Isn’t A Fan Either, Prowl x Jazz anniversary challenge 2016, Snow, Wind - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-08-18 09:03:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8156612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rizobact/pseuds/Rizobact
Summary: Jazz had never felt the need to spend nine days trapped in a small shed in a blizzard. Too bad the weather had other ideas. At least he had Prowl — and a single blanket — to shelter with.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [anniversarychallenge16](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/anniversarychallenge16) collection. 



> One of my favorite tropes is two characters trapped together in close quarters/severe conditions, be it a closet, a cave-in, or a blizzard, so I was thrilled to see this in the prompts list and jumped at the opportunity to write it.
> 
> Beta’d by the wonderfully talented [dragonofdispair](http://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonofdispair)

Day 1: The Storm Begins

Jazz was mad. Burning with anger, an absolute inferno of indignation. Furious enough for steam to be pouring out his ears, as the human expression went! 

Not literally, of course, despite being a giant alien robot. Apart from the fact that his cooling systems didn’t circulate water, and were in no way connected to his audials, there was another, much simpler reason why that was impossible — it was too Primus-blasted  _ cold  _ for water to exist in the air in any state other than frozen.

Too bad anger wouldn’t actually keep him warm. Made it a little silly to keep it up, really.

“Was there  _ really  _ no warning  _ at all? _ ” he whined to his companion… again.

“My answer isn’t going to change, no matter how many times you ask me,” Prowl snapped, his tone very nearly as biting as the frigid wind whistling through the cracks in the walls of their meager shelter. “Would you  _ please  _ give it a rest?”

Whoops. Picking a fight might have been a good distraction from how miserable he was, but Jazz didn’t really want to punish Prowl for their current predicament. If anything, it was  _ his  _ fault for not listening to Prowl in the first place.

So human GPS really  _ didn’t  _ know the roads out here. It hadn’t failed him once in town! How was he to know it wasn’t as reliable in the country? But it was no use pointing fingers. The  _ point  _ was they were stranded in an undriveable, frozen, windswept hellscape.

The joke ran that the letter ‘h’ was the middle of nowhere. As far as Jazz was concerned, they had found the real punchline right here in the great Northwestern United States.

“I just wish we were back at the Ark, ‘stead of bein’ stuck out here,” Jazz said, inching closer to Prowl in an attempt to keep at least one side of his frame from freezing. The single canvas ‘blanket’ they had found in the shed wasn’t quite big enough for both of them, and it left his outside arm and leg exposed. Still, it was better than nothing, and the straw the tarp had been covering did a little bit to make the floor warmer once it was spread around. “They’re gonna worry when we don’t make it back.”

Prowl’s engine gave an interesting  _ growl/sigh _ . “You can stop bothering me about whether or not I’ve been able to get a signal too.” He didn’t push Jazz away — if anything, he leaned in closer, taking advantage of Jazz as a source of warmth the same way Jazz was using him — but he didn’t sound any less aggravated. “The blizzard is making it impossible to find a connection.”

He hadn’t meant for Prowl to take what he’d said that way, but Jazz didn’t argue. As touchy as they both were, maybe it would be better to say nothing for a while. There was certainly nothing they could  _ do,  _ other than huddle together and wait for the blizzard that had caught them completely by surprise to blow over.

Jazz hoped it wouldn’t take very long.

.

.

Day 2: The Storm Continues

There was no dawn to mark the beginning of the second day of the blizzard. The shed stayed pitch dark through the night and into the morning. Only Jazz’s chronometer let him know when the 24-hour mark rolled over without any lessening of either wind or snow.

He hadn’t recharged at all, though Prowl somehow had. Pressed together the way they were beneath the canvas, Jazz had felt his systems even out into a light doze for part of the night. Now he was awake again, the glow of his blue optics joining the light from Jazz’s visor as the only illumination in the cramped space.

“Mornin’,” Jazz said, raising a hand to wave his fingers. “Sleep well?”

“Not particularly, though I’m feeling somewhat better for it.” His foul temper from before seemed to be gone at least, which was a relief. He looked at Jazz critically. “You do not seem to have recharged at all.”

“Wasn’t tired enough, and the storm was too loud.” Not false, though also not entirely true. The real issue was the cold. Prowl put out less heat while recharging, and Jazz had been a bit anxious at the thought of doing the same. The hoarfrost starting to creep up his leg had served as a warning — he didn’t need it in his internals as well.

“You should try to soon. Blizzards can last for days in some parts of the country, and we don’t know how big this storm system is. We should try to conserve energy; we only have a limited supply of energon between us.”

Well. Wasn’t that a pleasant thought? Freezing  _ and  _ starving! This just kept getting better. More than ever Jazz wished they had made it back to the Ark.

“How ‘bout we recharge in shifts?” he suggested, biting the bullet and admitting the problem. “When you power down the temperature in here drops, and my armor ain’t as thick as yours.” One of the drawbacks of his flexibility. Jazz usually considered it a good trade, but in their current situation it worked against him. “I’m all for savin’ energon, ‘specially since I want to be able to drive out of here when it finally lets up, but it’s no good conservin’ fuel if it means freezing into stasis.”

Skyfire didn’t like to talk about what it had been like, getting trapped by that primordial blizzard. It was too traumatic for him. Jazz really wasn’t interested in having a comparable experience with the poor mech.

“Ah. Of course.” Prowl sounded irritated by his oversight. “You should recharge now then. It will be marginally warmer during the day, and I will stay awake.” He paused. “Would it help you to have the tarp to yourself?”

“No, this is fine,” Jazz insisted. “Long as you’re awake. You’re warmer than it is, anyway.”

“As long as you’re sure.” Prowl frowned. “How much energon do you have left in your subspace? I should work out a rationing schedule, in case it becomes necessary.”

“Here’s what I’ve got.” Jazz pinged over his current inventory as he snuggled in close. It wasn’t much; their trip was only supposed to have been a short one. “If I’m not awake by the time you need a break from your fancy numbers, shake me.”

.

.

Day 3: The Storm Gets Worse

“Captain's log, stardate 5943.7. We have found ourselves in a desolate wasteland, stuck in a shack attempting to weather the worst snowstorm in the recorded history of any known planet. Our chances of survival are dwindling as rapidly as our fuel stores, and we’re so far off the beaten path that they’ll probably never find the bodies—”

“Jazz.” Prowl’s voice was resigned. “Must you?”

“Just thought a little black humor’d cheer us up. What? Isn’t it helping?”

“No.”

Jazz shrugged, the gesture scraping his shoulder along Prowl’s arm beneath the shared canvas. Day three and still no sign of the storm abating. If anything, it was only getting worse. The hiss of the wind was angrier, and tiny snow drifts were beginning to accumulate inside as the icy white powder was driven in through chinks in the boards.

This wasn’t where Jazz would have chosen to shelter if there had been a choice, but there hadn’t been. The blizzard had blown up fast, faster than they could outrun it. They’d been lucky to find a place in such relatively good condition in the rural countryside. Every other building they’d passed had either been too small, too patchwork, or too fallen down to be of any use keeping the elements off them.

“In all seriousness though,” Jazz said, tilting his helm up to meet Prowl’s optics. “How are we doin’ on energon?”

“We have enough for five days on regular rations.”

“Meanin’ ten on half.” Jazz fought down a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold. “It can’t last that long… can it?”

Prowl’s lack of response was answer enough. 

Rationing it was then. Jazz shifted to pull out a cube and drank half of it before handing the rest to Prowl. “Cheers.”

“Thank you.” Prowl finished it off and dispersed the cube. “Will you be able to maintain a safe minimum temperature on that amount of fuel? I really will give you the tarp if you need it. I mean it.”

No way. Jazz wasn’t going to let Prowl freeze for his sake. “I’ll be fine.” The tiny shed shook with another shriek of wind. “As long as the roof doesn’t collapse.”

.

.

Day 4: No Seriously, It Somehow Keeps Getting Worse

Jazz wasn’t able to recharge on the fourth day. He felt bad, knowing the more time he spent online was that much more energon wasted, but he couldn’t help it. He was too cold to sleep.

He was afraid to wake up entombed in ice.

Sometime in the night, the wind had shifted, wailing down harder than ever before. The temperature had dropped like a stone, driving Jazz to practically climb into Prowl’s lap in a futile attempt to get away from it. Prowl hadn’t protested; the tarp fit better over both of them that way, leaving less of Prowl exposed and covering Jazz completely.

When they’d first wedged themselves into the shed, they’d oriented themselves side by side with the single wall of cupboards and shelves at their backs to provide a small additional barrier between them and the outside. Both of them had tucked away as many protruding pieces of kibble as they could, doors folded down flat and plating clamped tightly to preserve their core temperatures as much as possible.

They’d discussed, briefly, whether they’d do better remaining in vehicle mode, but there wasn’t room to transform with both of them in the shed. The possibility of needing to dig their way out had decided them, though right now Jazz wasn’t worrying about that. The only  _ good _ thing the wind was doing was keeping snow from building up on the roof. Jazz didn’t know how much weight it was designed to hold, but it didn’t matter if the snow never got the chance to accumulate.

Of course, the howling wind was also sucking every single ounce of heat out of the building as fast as they put it out. The hard-packed drifts it created against the side of the shed — only  _ one  _ side of the shed — did next to nothing to insulate them from the blizzard’s fury.

“Jazz?” Prowl’s fingers tapped his arm gently. The sensation was slow to register; his haptic feedback was going numb.

“Yeah Prowler?” He didn’t bother to look up. He’d finally found a position that kept the drafts from snaking down along his neck cables, and he wasn’t moving for anything.

“It’s too cold for me to recharge too.”

.

.

Day 5: We’re Going to Die Out Here, Aren’t We?

So much for rationing. They couldn’t continue on half cubes when they could no longer recharge and needed to keep their engines running to stay warm enough to prevent the fluid in their lines from freezing. Thank Primus it really wasn’t water, or they’d have been blocks of ice ages ago.

As it was, they weren’t all that far off. Jazz was curled up in as small a ball as he could contort himself into in Prowl’s lap with the other mech’s arms around him and the canvas over them both. They had to keep tucking the corners back in whenever the wind pulled them free, and they’d given up trying to gather up and use the straw for anything. The wind just scattered it again every time, and that was  _ with  _ the walls of the shed shielding them from the worst of it.

The blizzard was too loud to talk over. Jazz sang to distract himself; warm, happy songs to take his mind off the bitter cold of the reality around them. Prowl couldn’t hear the notes, but he could feel him humming.

.

.

Day 6: Finally, A Break In The Storm

The funny thing about surviving the kind of temperatures they’d had over the last couple of days was that it made regular cold seem downright  _ balmy. _

It was still well below freezing, of course. Jazz’s thermometer worked as well as the rest of him, which was surprisingly well, all things considered. But it still felt like a warm spring day, if not a trip to the beach in summer, by comparison to what they’d just endured.

The storm wasn’t actually over though. It might have been warmer, but that was because they had traded  _ wind _ for  _ snow _ . Now they were definitely buried, the shed almost completely hidden underneath glorious, wonderfully wind-blocking white powder on every side. Jazz didn’t even care that it meant they would be digging their way out after all. The temperature had finally risen enough to be almost  _ comfortable _ , and he and Prowl both sagged against each other with relief and exhaustion.

“This does bring back the concern that the roof may give out if this continues,” Prowl pointed out, still holding Jazz in his arms even though he could have let him go. There were no indications of that happening — no groaning beams or strained cracking came from the rafters. The only sound above them now was the soft shushing of thickly falling snow in the blessedly  _ still  _ air.

“If that wind didn’t tear it off, I’m willin’ to bet it’ll hold up to a few feet of snow,” Jazz said with a sigh, drinking his half-ration slowly to savor it. They were back to stretching their resources for as long as it stayed this warm (ha!). “It’s built better than it looked.”

“Luckily for us,” Prowl said, patiently watching Jazz drink. He’d gone first this time, and had already had his share.

“We were due a bit of luck!”

“Hmm. Speaking of things that are due,” Prowl said a bit wryly, “don’t you think perhaps an apology might be due as well?”

“Oh, are you apologizin’ for your attitude before? Very well, I accept!” Jazz grinned cheekily to let Prowl know he was teasing. “I know what you meant. And I’m sorry. I thought I knew how to get back and I wouldn’t listen when you said it didn’t look right.”

“I still don’t understand why you wouldn’t stop for directions.”

“Stop for—! Prowl, I  _ was  _ gettin’ directions, straight from the satellite!” Jazz let his helm fall to Prowl’s shoulder with a soft  _ clang!  _ “They just weren’t up to date. Or complete.”

“Which is precisely why I advocated stopping and asking one of the locals,” Prowl chuckled, bringing a hand up to cup the back of Jazz’s helm and stroke his thumb over the frost-streaked black plating. “Their information would have been much more accurate.”

“Yeah, well, live and learn. I was just tryin’ to save us some time so we could get home faster.”

“You’ve done an excellent job of that,” Prowl deadpanned. ”We’re six days late returning to the Ark and counting.”

Jazz laughed. “Trust me, I appreciate the irony.” He raised his helm. Prowl’s hand didn’t leave it. “I really am sorry.”

Prowl’s stern expression melted, likely the only thing thawing for hundreds of miles. “You’re forgiven.”

“Thank you.” Jazz smiled back. “So? What do we do now?”

“We wait for the snow to stop so they can start clearing the roads,” Prowl answered. “We only need to get to someplace where we can get a message to the Autobots to pick us up.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jazz said as he finished off the cube. “I don’t know about you, but I am overdue for a nap. Join me?”  _ While we can?  _ he didn’t quite add. He didn’t want to think about the possibility of the storm getting worse instead of stopping… even if it was a possibility. 

“Yes.”  _ While we can. _

.

.

Day 7: Too Good To Last

Jazz registered two things as he came up out of recharge. The first was Prowl’s hand shaking him gently and murmuring at him to wake up while the other hand fumbled with the canvas.

The second was the wind.

“Noooo…” he groaned, burrowing his face into his arms and curling up again so Prowl could pull the tarp up over his helm. “Make it stop. Somebody call the President and cancel the blizzard.”

“The President doesn’t control the weather,” Prowl chided, though he sounded like he sort of wished he did so they could call him and tell him off for this mess. 

Then again, if they’d had the ability to make calls, they could have called the Autobots for a pickup and it wouldn’t have mattered. Jazz would have been just fine letting the blizzard blow itself merrily out — as long as he and Prowl were  _ somewhere else.  _ Somewhere far away and  _ warm. _

With the return of the wind and cold came a hard freeze that solidified the drifts outside the shed. It kept most of the cracks sealed against drafts, but it also meant the snow was becoming ice, which wouldn’t be as easy to dig through. Though they could always shoot their way out, if they decided not to worry about preserving the shed… 

They each had only one cube left. Jazz tried to drink only a third of his, but Prowl insisted he have at least half of it. “You need to stay warm,” he told him gently. “I’ll be fine on a little less. Don’t short yourself.”

Jazz didn’t put up a fight. They didn’t have enough to last much longer either way. As soon as the remainder was back in his subspace he ducked back under the canvas to keep in as much heat as he could while they went back to waiting for the storm to end.

.

.

Day 8: Primus Take Me Now

“What if it never stops?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course it will stop,” Prowl said. He was trying to sound reassuring, but Jazz wasn’t buying it.

“No, I think we’ve fallen into a pocket dimension of eternal winter,” he said resolutely. “Where the wind always wails and the sun never shines, and everything slowly freezes under creeping fingers of frost.”

“Is this more of your black humor? Because if so, it’s just as effective as it was before.”

“So, not.”

“Exactly.”

Jazz sighed.  _ Eight days  _ they’d been out in this. The other Autobots were probably beyond frantic by now without any word from them. He found himself amazed that their human allies would choose to live in places like this, where the conditions could be so inhospitable. If Spike or Carly had been with them on this trip… Jazz shuddered to think.

“Jazz? What is it?”

“Nevermind. More stuff you don’t wanna hear.” At least it was quiet enough that they  _ could  _ hear each other. Once again they were in a spell with less wind, but absolutely frigid temperatures. Jazz could feel ice building up in some of the joints in his extremities. It squeaked and squealed and  _ hurt  _ when he moved. “What happens if we do fall into stasis?”

“We’re not going to fall into stasis.”

“Right. Sure. Of course not. And then what happens when we’ve fallen into stasis?”

He felt Prowl sigh, the briefest puff of warm air from his temporarily opened vents brushing over his frame before dissipating into the air. “They will send out a search party. Even in stasis, they will be able to track our signal, once they are close enough. Don’t worry.” Prowl’s arms squeezed tighter around him. “They’ll find us.”

Jazz tried to hold onto that comfort, and not focus on how far off their expected travel route his ‘shortcut’ had likely taken them.

.

.

Day 9: Is It Over?

It took several minutes for Jazz to realize what he was hearing — or rather,  _ not  _ hearing, the next day. Then it hit him: it was gone! The white noise of the wind and snow whistling outside was gone. 

“Prowl!” 

The other mech had been dozing under Jazz, fingers tangled in the edges of the canvas to keep it pulled tight around them. It made it difficult for Jazz to move, though the combination of his fidgeting and calling for Prowl to wake up succeeded in rousing him.

“What is it?”

“The storm! It stopped! I can’t hear it anymore,” Jazz announced happily. “Come on, let’s see if we can get outside.”

Prowl sat still for a minute, then his optics brightened as he, too, noted the lack of sound. “You need to let me up first,” he said, releasing the tarp so Jazz could actually do so. “I wonder how deeply buried we are.”

“I could still hear the wind pretty close to the roof before it disappeared,” Jazz told him as he stood, bringing the tarp with him so it wouldn’t be in Prowl’s way. “I don’t think we’re completely covered.”

“We’ll see in a minute.” Prowl stood and took the tarp from Jazz, only to wrap it around his shoulders like a cloak a second later. “Here. You need it more than I do.”

“Thanks.” Jazz secured the corners with a knot so he could have his hands free, then smiled at Prowl. “But we’re going back to sharin’ later.” 

It took both of them to pull the frozen door open. Ice had formed over all the hardware, making it a difficult task to manage without simply pulling the door off its hinges. That was something they wanted to avoid if they could, since they might very well want to close it again. Besides, the shed belonged to someone. Both of them agreed it would be preferable to leave it intact if possible.

When they finally pried the door open, they were met by a blinding expanse of pure white. Jazz immediately polarized his visor, filtering the light so he could see — not that there was anything  _ to  _ see. White, white, and more white, in gentle rolling slopes he knew were several feet deep, judging by the height of the snow next to the shed.

Prowl was still blinking into the sun glare, calibrating his optics to the new input. “Whole lotta nothin’,” Jazz told him helpfully. “Snow’s six feet on this side of the shed, but I bet it’s higher ‘round back where it drifted more. This was the leeward side for most of the storm.”

“Can you tell where the road is?”

“Honestly? No.” Jazz thought back to when they’d first stumbled off the road and into the shed. “It should be out in front of us somewhere, but it’s completely covered.” He looked up at the sun to check its position. “I can tell you which way’s north.”

“That won’t help much. The snow can’t bear our weight, and we’ll wear ourselves out wading through it.” Half a cube — or two thirds, in Prowl’s case — wouldn’t get them very far. But perhaps it didn’t have to.

“I still had a connection a couple of miles before we took shelter,” Jazz pointed back along the endless glittering expanse, “and the road was running pretty much due west. If we head east, we should be back in range of whatever tower I was pinging off of before we run out of fuel, even dealing with hard-packed ice and snow.” He gestured for Prowl to precede him. “Shall we?”

The next several hours were spent slogging through snow. They uncovered a section of the road before too long, which gave them a clear path to follow from there on out. Prowl eventually said they would have to go back to the shed to conserve power, keeping their locators transmitting for the Autobots to trace them if they didn’t find a signal soon. 

Fortunately, not long after that they did.

“Hey! Prowl, I think — yes! YES! We have reception!” Jazz let out a bright whoop that sparkled over the snow like the setting sun. “Blaster, my main mech! Sorry to worry everyone — yeah, me’n Prowler are both fine, we just got caught in a bit of a snowstorm.” Understatement of the century, but exaggerated (and not-so-exaggerated) tales of their trials and tribulations could wait until they were home. “Think you could send someone to come pick us up? We’re runnin’ on fumes and it’s gettin’ colder by the minute.”

**Author's Note:**

> So you may have noticed they didn't try anything... _creative_... to get warm XD Both Prowl and Jazz surprised me as I was writing this by insisting the story takes place before they become a couple. And then, instead of using this as an excuse to get together, they just wanted to get through it and go home! *headdesk* Stubborn mechs. But then, with a strong foundation of friendship like they have to survive things like this, I'm going to imagine romance in their future someday. Maybe now that they've done a blizzard, a cave-in or a closet will help them make some progress!
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
